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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

In Mexico, organised crime reaches everywhere, even into the smallest village - except for one small town in the state of Michoacan. Led by local women, the people of Cheran rose up to defend their forest from armed loggers - and kicked out police and politicians at the same time [bbc.com].
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Early on Friday 15 April 2011, Cheran's levantamiento, or uprising, began. On the road coming down from the forest outside Margarita's home, the women blockaded the loggers' pick-ups and took some of them hostage. As the church bells of El Calvario rang out and fireworks exploded in the dawn sky alerting the community to danger, the people of Cheran came running to help. It was tense - hotheads had to be persuaded by the women not to string up the hostages from an ancient tree outside the church.
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The municipal police arrived with the mayor, and armed men came to free their hostage-friends. There was an uneasy stand-off between the townspeople, the loggers and the police. It ended after two loggers were injured by a young man who shot a firework directly at them. And Cheran - a town of some 20,000 people - began its journey towards self-government.

"It makes me want to cry remembering that day," says Margarita. "It was like a horror movie - but it was the best thing we could have done."

The police and local politicians were quickly driven out of town because the people suspected they were collaborating with the criminal networks. Political parties were banned - and still are - because they were deemed to have caused divisions between people. And each of the four districts of Cheran elected representatives to a ruling town council. In many ways, Cheran - a town populated by the indigenous Purepecha people - returned to its roots: to the ancient way of doing things, independent of outsiders.

Original Submission